Kyle Busch’s fifth keeps him in place for Chase

Kyle Busch finished fifth in Saturday’s Bank of America 500, also keeping him in fifth place in the Chase for the Sprint Cup standings. And that wasn’t nearly good enough for Busch, who now trails leader Matt Kenseth by 37 points.

Kyle Busch finished fifth in Saturday’s Bank of America 500, also keeping him in fifth place in the Chase for the Sprint Cup standings. And that wasn’t nearly good enough for Busch, who now trails leader Matt Kenseth by 37 points.

“That’s about as good as we are – fifth place,” said Busch, who is still pursuing his first championship and started ninth Saturday. “Pretty frustrating. We got a top-five, which is good. But when it’s championship time, that’s not what what you need. We need wins and we can’t win.

“It’s good to finish in the top five, but it certainly stinks. We’re not good enough. It’s frustrating. I’m beating myself up every week trying to figure out what I’ve got to do to get better and I don’t know what it is. I work hard through practice. I work hard through the week. I study film. I do everything I need to, but it’s not paying off.

“We got beat by all the guys that we’re racing, essentially, except for one. We need to win races and we’re not capable of doing that right now.”

Notes

• It was an early night for Mark Martin in the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 14 Chevy. Martin, filling in for injured Tony Stewart, blew an engine on Lap 80 and finished 42nd.

“We broke a valve spring earlier and we were trying to nurse it along to maybe a caution, where we could possibly work on it where it wouldn’t self-destruct,” said Martin. “But we couldn’t get that. We went down on seven cylinders – no warnings, no issues until that point. I would have liked to have raced and got the experience of adjusting our car and fighting and battling with it.”

Not much has gone right for Martin in Stewart’s car. In eight races, Martin has just one top 10 (a ninth at Richmond).

• Kentucky Speedway announced a five-year sponsorship renewal with Quaker State as the track’s title sponsor for its Cup race. The Quaker State 400 is set for next season on June 28, 2014.